Scientists have been using tiny particles of rust to draw arsenic out of water (Source: Roger McLassus at Wikimedia Commons)
You might be surprised to hear that a lot of drinking water has arsenic in it. It’s a problem all over the globe, especially when drinking water comes from deep under the ground. Julie Grant reports that some researchers are using tiny particles – at the nano-scale – and plain old rust, to remove arsenic from the water:
Transcript
You might be surprised to hear that a lot of drinking water has arsenic in it. It’s a problem all over the globe, especially when drinking water comes from deep under the ground. Julie Grant reports that some researchers are using tiny particles – at the nano-scale – and plain old rust, to remove arsenic from the water:
You can’t see, smell, or taste arsenic – but prolonged exposure to it can lead to skin discoloration and even cancer.
Vicki Colvin studies chemistry and nanotechnology at Rice University in Houston.
She says arsenic has a chemical bond with rust – and sticks to it. So they’ve been using tiny particles of rust to draw arsenic out of water in the lab.
Now Colvin says they’re working with a city in Mexico. They’re trying to make what they call nano-rust in the field, so the city can cheaply remove arsenic from its water.
“So, we’ve developed procedures and processes that help people make nano-rust not at a major university with a nanotechnology facilty. But you know literally in a restaurant setting, more maybe in a ceramics factory.”
Colvin says they will be experimenting in Mexico over the next two years.
Another scare came a few years ago, when spinach was found to be tainted with E. Coli (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
In the wake of this year’s tainted peanut butter scare, Congress is getting ready to approve changes to the Food and Drug Administration. Lawmakers want to give the American public more confidence in the safety of the food supply system. But some people doubt they will be able to
make real change. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
In the wake of this year’s tainted peanut butter scare,
Congress is getting ready to approve changes to the Food
and Drug Administration. Lawmakers want to give the
American public more confidence in the safety of the food
supply system. But some people doubt they will be able to
make real change. Julie Grant reports:
Gwen Rosenberg is a mom. She has four boys to feed. So
she’d like to be able to trust that the food supply is safe.
But when Rosenberg heard that 8 people died after eating
peanut products earlier this year, and hundreds more got
sick, it confirmed her beliefs: that the Food and Drug
Administration isn’t making sure food is safe.
“There shouldn’t be stories that come out that reveal that the
peanut plant hasn’t been inspected for years. Or when it
was inspected, there was rat feces. They’re not doing their
job.”
Rosenberg wants the FDA to crack down on food
manufacturers. She says they need inspect more – and shut
down facilities when they find dangerous conditions. She
was appalled when she realized the FDA has no authority to
recall tainted foods.
“The fact that they don’t have recall authority essentially
neuters the FDA. I mean, how are we supposed to take
anything they say or do seriously if they end result is, ‘well,
we can’t force you to do this?’ Well, thanks for the
community service message not to eat the tainted peanut
butter, but you’re not actually making me any safer.”
In the case of the Peanut Corporation of America, a test
found salmonella in its products. It retested. When the test
came out negative, it went ahead and shipped out the
products.
And the FDA had no recall authority. Congressman Bart
Stupak says that’s just wrong. He’s co-sponsoring a food
safety bill that would give the FDA some authority in cases
like this.
“What the FDA can do, shut ‘er down. Prove to me that you
cleaned it up. Prove to me, where did you destroy this
product. Give me the facts. They can’t give you the facts,
shut ‘er down right now. Let’s not wait ten days.”
But leaders in the FDA don’t think recall authority would
have made much difference in the tainted peanut product
case.
David Acheson is Associate Commissioner for foods at the
FDA. Once people started getting sick, he says most
companies using the Peanut Corporation of America’s
products voluntarily recalled their cookies and crackers.
“There’s no suggestion that having mandatory recall is a
panacea to solving food safety problems. It’s one more tool
that would be used from time to time when the situation
warrants it, but it’s not the answer to modernizing food
safety.”
Acheson says the real problem is that the FDA is so busy
reacting to public health threats – to putting out fires – that it
can’t get ahead of the problems and fix the food safety
system.
He says the food system needs preventive controls.
There are a lot of points in the food supply chain where
hazards can creep in: when the food is being grown,
processed, distributed, or sold in a store. Acheson says the
food industry needs to identify control points for each food –
where they are most at risk at becoming unsafe.
“Is it a wild animal in a field, is it the water supply for the
spinach, is it the temperature in my freezer in a retail store.
And all these things in between where things can go wrong
and food can either become contaminated or if there is a low
level of contamination then bacteria can grow.”
Once those control points are identified, Acheson says the
FDA needs to do more inspections – to make sure food is
being handlled safely from farms fields to grocery stores.
But that’s going to cost money.
So Congress is considering charging companies fees to pay
for those inspections.
Food manufacturers don’t like that idea. We contacted
several companies, but none of them, not even the Grocery
Manufacturers Association, would comment for this story.
Researcher Kevin Keener has been working on a device that turns the air inside food packaging into ozone (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)
Researchers are working overtime to find ways to kill dangerous bacteria in food such as Salmonella and E. coli. Rebecca Williams reports one researcher has found a new way to kill bacteria:
Transcript
Researchers are working
overtime to find ways to kill dangerous bacteria in food such as Salmonella and E. coli. Rebecca Williams reports one researcher has found a new way to kill bacteria:
Food processors expose produce like lettuce to ozone for a few seconds or minutes to kill bacteria.
Kevin Keener has been working on a device that turns the air inside food packaging into ozone.
Keener is a food process engineer at Purdue University.
He attaches the device to the outside of food packages – like a bag of lettuce – and applies electrodes that send high voltage through the bag.
“Visually it’s very Frankenstein-ish. It’s a safe process, there is a high voltage, but it’s similar to a spark you’d get with an electric fence.”
Keener says the ozone spends more time with the food so it kills more bacteria.
There’s a problem though – in some of their tests the device turned green spinach white.
So there are a few kinks to work out. But food companies are interested and we might see this commercialized in a year or two.
(Photo courtesy of American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity)
You are being targeted by lobbyists. The coal industry and environmentalists are both trying to influence what you think. In the first part of our series on the future of coal, Lester Graham looks at the campaigns for-and-against coal:
Transcript
You are being targeted by lobbyists. The coal industry and environmentalists are both trying to influence what you think. In the first part of our series on the future of coal, Lester Graham looks at the campaigns for-and-against coal:
You probably don’t buy coal directly. But you do0 pay for it when you pay your power bill. 50% of the nation’s electricity comes from coal-burning power plants.
The problem with that is, coal pollutes.
Not as much as it used to. Some traditional pollutants have been reduced by 77% since the 1970 Clean Air Act.
Although the government forced it to reduce some some of the pollution, the coal industry brags about the progress and encouarges you to believe in the future of “clean coal.”
American Coalition for Clean Coal advertisement:
“I believe. I believe. We can be energy independent. We can continue to use our most abundant fuel cleanly and responsibly. We can and we will. Clean coal: America’s power”
Joe Lucas is the man behind that ad. He’s with the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Lucas says the meaning of the phrase “clean coal” is always evolving.
“Ah, the use of the term ‘clean coal,’ it is a term of art. Up until now it has been technology that has reduced traditional pollution emissions and increased the efficiency of power plants and going forward we’re rapidly approaching the point to where it will be technologies for capture and storage of carbon.”
But right now, no power plant captures carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas contributing to climate change.
That’s why environmentalists scoff at the coal industry’s use of ‘clean coal.’
Cohen brothers advertisement:
“Clean coal harnesses the awesome power of the word ‘clean’ to make it sound like the cleanest clean there is!” (coughing)
The guy behind that ad is Brian Hardwick. He’s the spokesman for the “This is Reality” campaign.
“In reality today there is no such thing as ‘clean coal.’ There is no commercial coal plant that captures its carbon pollution not to mention the other environmental impacts that the coal industry has – from burning coal and the runoff and the extraction of coal. So, we launched an effort to try to bring out the truth about coal in response to the marketing campaign that the coal industry had so that people could come to their own conclusions about whether or not they thought coal was indeed clean.”
Clean or not, we have a lot of coal here in the U.S. It’s relatively cheap. And when pushed, a lot of environmentalists concede we’ll need to rely on coal for electricity generation for some time to come.
During last year’s Presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama aknowledged that to people at a rally in Virginia, but indicated we need to find a way to really get to ‘clean coal.’
“Why aren’t we figuring how to sequester the carbons from coal? Clean coal technology is something that can make America energy independent.” (applause)
And President Obama has followed up on that. In the stimulus plan, 3.4 billion dollars was set aside to find ways to make coal clean.
There’s more to clean up. Sulfur dioxide, or SOx, contributes to acid rain. Nitrogen Oxides, or NOx, helps cause smog. Those have been reduced, but not eliminated. And then there’s toxic mercury and particulate matter – or soot. All of it harms the environment and public health.
President Obama’s Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, is a big proponent of cleaner energy sources such as wind and solar. But he says we do need to find a way to use coal.
“Right now as we’re using coal it’s not clean. But, I firmly believe that we should invest very heavily on strategies that can take a large fraction of the carbon dioxide out of coal as well as the SOx the NOx, the mercury, particulate matter.”
But until that technology is in place, ‘clean coal’ is no more than what the coal industry calls an “evolving term of art.”
A sign on the Tittabawassee River, downriver from Dow Chemical Plant, stating to avoid contact with the soil and not eat the fish due to dioxin contamination (Photo by Vincent Duffy)
A group of one-hundred organizations is calling on the government to
release a twenty-year-old report on a toxic group of chemicals called
dioxins. Kyle Norris reports:
Transcript
A group of one-hundred organizations is calling on the government to
release a twenty-year-old report on a toxic group of chemicals called
dioxins. Kyle Norris reports:
Dioxins are everywhere – they’re created through manufacturing, burning
garbage, even burning gasoline.
The US Environmental Protection Agency did this big assessment of
dioxins, 20 years ago. But the report’s release has been stalled all that time
by industry lobbyists.
Michael Schade is with the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice. He
says not releasing this report is a health-risk to all of us.
“Every time you go to the grocery store and you buy milk or cheese or you eat beef or
pork or fish, you’re being exposed to this chemical in the food that you eat. And until the
EPA releases this report we’ll continue to be exposed to potentially dangerous levels of
this chemical which has been linked to cancer and endometriosis and other serious health
problems.”
The one-hundred groups have sent a letter to President Obama saying the
government has a responsibility to tell us exactly how dangerous dioxins are.
There’s a chance that
potentially-contaminated food is still sitting on store shelves, and maybe in
your pantry (Source: Gene.Arboit at Wikimedia Commons)
Hundreds of products with peanuts or peanut-butter have been yanked from
store shelves. That’s because of an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. Kyle
Norris has the latest on the outbreak:
Transcript
Hundreds of products with peanuts or peanut-butter have been yanked from
store shelves. That’s because of an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. Kyle
Norris has the latest on the outbreak:
We know the products include cookies, crackers, snack bars, cakes, candies,
ice cream—even pet foods are affected. And there’s a chance that
potentially-contaminated food is still sitting on store shelves. And maybe in
your pantry.
Matthew Boulton is an associate professor of epidemiology. He’s at the
University of Michigan School of Public Health. He says the testing of the
Georgia facility that made these peanut-butter products shows there are
flaws in the food safety system.
“I think one of the big problems is this divide we have between the folks who do the
regulation and the folks responsible for human health. Sometimes you don’t have good
communication between those two groups and it’s really critical if you’re going to get a
handle on insuring a safe food supply.”
Boulton says this peanut-butter scare could go on for a few weeks. Or a few
months.
A catfish farmer in Mississippi (Photo by Stephen Ausmus, courtesy of the USDA)
The Food and Drug Administration
has once again opened the debate about
how much fish pregnant women can safely
eat. Lester Graham reports the FDA might
abandon guidelines it issued less than
five years ago:
Transcript
The Food and Drug Administration
has once again opened the debate about
how much fish pregnant women can safely
eat. Lester Graham reports the FDA might
abandon guidelines it issued less than
five years ago:
In early 2004 the FDA suggested pregnant women or women planning to become
pregnant should avoid fish with higher levels of mercury such as swordfish or shark.
And limit all other fish to a couple of meals a week.
Now, a proposed FDA recommendation indicates fish is too healthful to worry about
the mercury, and suggests instead of avoiding fish altogether, pregnant women
should eat more.
Sonya Lunder is with the advocacy organization, The Environmental Working Group.
She says the recommendation won’t hold up to scrutiny.
“And all the flaws in it will come to light. My concern is that the headlines that come
out that there’s a debate about the toxicity of fish or what pregnant women should
eat cause a lot of confusion.”
The FDA’s proposal comes after years of lobbying by the seafood industry.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
In a suburban area of Chicago, kids protested to make the area safer for walking to school (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Kids in big cities often live
close to school, so you’d think walking
to school would be an easy solution to
cutting childhood obesity. But some
parents worry about traffic, abduction,
or gangs so much, they stuff their kids
in the car instead. Shawn Allee met some
groups who want parents to overcome that
fear and let kids burn more calories:
Transcript
Kids in big cities often live
close to school, so you’d think walking
to school would be an easy solution to
cutting childhood obesity. But some
parents worry about traffic, abduction,
or gangs so much, they stuff their kids
in the car instead. Shawn Allee met some
groups who want parents to overcome that
fear and let kids burn more calories:
“I’m going to walk you through what Safe Routes To School is and we’ll talk about
how it works in a place like Chicago.”
This is Melody Geraci.
She’s with the Active Transportation Alliance, a Chicago group that promotes walking and
biking.
For Geraci, there’s plain-jane walking to school where you toss your kid a lunch bucket and
wave goodbye – and there’s organized walking.
In some parts of Chicago and other big cities – parents don’t trust the plain-jane kind.
“When we ask parents, why does your child not walk or bike to school, a lot of
parents will say ‘distance’ – it’s too far. That’s not the case in Chicago. Most kids
live close enough to their neighborhood school to get there by foot, right? But then
they say traffic. People are driving crazy. The streets are hard to cross, not enough
crossing guards, all that stuff.”
Geraci says organized school walking is a remedy: put kids together, and put adults in the
mix.
“There’s this phenomenon called safety in numbers. So if you have fifteen people at
an intersection at a light, they’re much easier to see than just one person trying to
navigate it all by themselves and nobody’s seen what happened.”
Geraci says this safety in numbers idea goes a long way in fighting traffic problems.
It can also work on fear over gangs or abduction.
“When fewer people are outside, walking places, biking places, just being out in
their environment, what happens? Things happen. Crime. There are fewer people
watching.”
Geraci’s message resonates with Carmen Scott-Boria.
Scott-Boria recommends walking to school as a solution to childhood obesity.
But she hesitated at first, because of her experience as a kid.
“The same time that I walked to school, that was also a prime gang-recruiting time
after school, so I definitely was intrigued by the gangs and got involved with gangs
because I walked to school.”
Scott-Boria says she’s not trying to scare parents – she just wants them to know what
they’re up against – and how organized they need to be.
To get an idea of what organized school walking can look like, I head to one of Chicago’s
elementary schools.
Victoria Arredondo and Remedios Salinas are near the school’s back entrance.
They run a walking school bus.
Every day, Arredondo and Salinas walk kids on a fixed route between school and home.
It’s like a bus, with no wheels – and no air pollution.
Arredondo says she gets plenty out of it.
“When I’m walking, I feel famous. People greet me, the neighbors, the businesses,
because they see us with the children and they greet us.”
Arredondo appreciates the recognition – because, every once in a while, it’s clear how
important her volunteer work is.
“We have a problem with gangs. A young lady got caught in the crossfire last year.
Since then the violence has settled down. It’s sad because after the loss, people want
to help.”
Her partner Salinas says that doesn’t last long.
“Sometimes people sign up but they don’t continue after a month, they stop doing
it.”
Salinas and Arredondo say their walking school bus makes everyone feel safer and fewer
cars clog up the street near school.
That translates into cleaner air and more exercise for kids.
That’s a community asset they’re glad to protect – they wish more parents would get on
board.
One study found PCB-11 in 90% of the air samples from Chicago (Photo by Lester Graham)
A potentially toxic chemical called
PCB-11 has been found all over the air in a
major city. That’s surprising, because people
thought the chemical hadn’t been used in years.
Gabriel Spitzer reports regulators could start
looking in other cities:
Transcript
A potentially toxic chemical called
PCB-11 has been found all over the air in a
major city. That’s surprising, because people
thought the chemical hadn’t been used in years.
Gabriel Spitzer reports regulators could start
looking in other cities:
Keri Hornbuckle says not much is known about PCB-11.
That’s because no one really expected to stumble on it.
“This finding is important, and I think it’s alarming. We should find out what the
health effects are for this chemical.”
Hornbuckle is a University of Iowa professor.
She looked at air samples from all over Chicago, and found the chemical in about 90% of
the samples.
She says the source is a mystery, though it might come from paints breaking down.
“Now, it could be that in all those places where we would expect to see the other
PCBs, we’d also see this one. But it’s a surprise, because no one thought it would be
produced.”
Hornbuckle says she found PCB-11 using a new, detailed way of analyzing air samples.
Other PCBs have been linked to cancer and neurological problems.
Two government agencies are issuing very different
messages about the safety of a plastic used to package food.
Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Two government agencies are issuing very different messages about the safety of a plastic used to package food. Lester Graham reports:
The Food and Drug Administration recently declared there’s “an adequate margin of safety” for a plastic called bisphenol A or BPA. But right after that the National Toxicology Program found BPA is of “some concern.”
Sarah Burkhalter is with the online environmental news service Grist-dot-org. She has found there are 115 studies on BPA… and the FDA is chiefly relying on plastic industry studies.
“104 of those were done by government scientists and university labs. 90 percent of them found BPA could harm human health. All eleven of the industry studies found that BPA was safe. So it makes sense that relying on those industry-funded studies that the FDA would find it to be safe.”
BPA is used in all sorts of things, including the linings of cans of food and baby bottles.
Scientists have been using tiny particles of rust to draw arsenic out of water (Source: Roger McLassus at Wikimedia Commons)
